Travis Country

What could be more frustrating than getting all excited about owning a house and then not being able to get the loan you need? I will now begin a white girl's rant about problems that some unfortunate people could only wish they had.

Having lived in a basement apartment for many years now (though large), there is a desire to have a home that includes the following elements: natural light (lots of it), a view of anything other than brick walls and the sides of cars (we literally live in a parking lot) no eye-level asphalt, no iron bars (though it freaks me out to imagine not having them) and no street debris (which is currently abundant because our windows aren't sealed and they're literally right on the street).

At first, we were incredibly impressed with everything we saw that had these elements. At this point, our Realtor probably thinks he could sell us a shed with good windows and we'd be ecstatic. But I'm trying to grow our sophistication level to not just being impressed with the outer (and inner) beauty, but to try and think more progressively in terms of "potential". However, I'm having to balance that with OUR actual potential (as in, buying a fixer-upper is probably not where we are right now).

We've been considering homes that pretty much fit our ideals, and that are in the neighborhood that suits our "style" (whatever that is). There is an abundance of these houses in a particular neighborhood we like that feature nice windows, hardwood floors, trees, craftsmanship, character and charm. These are older houses built in the 1940's and they're LOADED with what has been lost on modern architecture and suburbia: uniqueness. They also tend to have very small closets (if any at all), tiny "vintage" bathrooms (as in time-warp), and other "little" problems that come with older houses.

So the goal: to buy a unique house that "looks like us", but that also has the amenities of decent storage and nice square footage. The houses mentioned above do not always come equipped with the storage part, though the more expensive houses are pretty good on the square footage - we don't need a lot, but we'd like to add at least a room onto what we currently have now. What this neighborhood lacks in storage and sqft, it makes-up for with trees soaring in both back and front yards, earthy/hippie people strolling the streets and tasteful wind-chimes tinkling from petite porches.

And then there's Travis Country.

Travis country is a place with w i d e streets, BIG houses, and potentially a lot of land. Any person that wants to make a value-driven investment would certainly buy a house in Travis Country right now. It's a very "sought-after" community with lots of young families, access to awesome trails and a big=ass Olympic community pool (important in TX). It's a totally up-and-coming area that is in a part of south Austin that is booming like crazy (new markets, coffee shops, boutiques, etc.) The only problem is that the houses were built in the 70's/80's and they are not only ugly on the outside, but they have the typically terrible floor plan of that era that feature strangely placed windows (often very high and not reaching down at all), walls with big long fireplaces instead of windows (who needs a fireplace in TX?), and sporadic placements of other rooms, often all carpeted. They are definitely houses of a particular era that I can't architecturally understand...in other words, what were they thinking when they built these houses?!

In the nature of being open-minded and considering "potential", however, I am trying to look past the obvious charm of our original picks, and see that we could take a big house (and partly ugly house) and creatively customize it like it was a blank slate. That would be the "smart" thing to do in terms of the market and where it's going right now (we won't be able to afford even a house in Travis Country in a couple of years). But the overall feeling of suburbia (though it's not in the suburbs) is bothering Erik, even though he's never driven in this neighborhood before (Google Maps Street View is our ultimate source), and I have to admit that such surroundings are pretty much my worst nightmare.

Thank goodness for "mediocre" credit! Our close friend (Mediocre Credit) will help us decide between possibly affording a house with charm that's currently smaller than our apt, or a house with "potential" that's bigger than our apt building (exagerating a tad).

I say this positively but it's actually a huge source of frustration. Because of one faulty payment (due to technical complications with a website, that then induced technical complications with remembering), we are suffering from total credit discrimination, especially in the height of the mortgage loan crisis currently happening in this country. And who knew that the advice we had gotten to work on our credit was bad advice (it's not as simple as making purchases on credit cards and paying it off right away). And who knew that when our mortgage broker gave us the advice to ask the credit card company to bury the problem, that it would instead bring it to their attention, and that they would post it to our credit report that night. I just want to take this opportunity to thank them for that.

And then, by some miracle, if you sit and stew for just a couple of days, your credit will randomly go up (or down) with absolutely no explanation at all. Lucky for us, Erik's went up 19 pts (after it went down with the credit card's recent report).

So here we are, up a credit-creek without a loan-paddle. We haven't officially tried to get pre-approved yet because we're advised to bring our score up first, but our current qualification is predictable, if we're even qualified at all.

I could now begin a long political rant about the recalcitrant creditors and lenders,and the relevant battle in Congress, but instead, I think it's suffice to say that it sucks.

For now, it's a game of wait-and-see.